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Sex and the censorship: Raven Faber talks about the difficulties of online advertising
“If you start talking about female pleasure then everyone starts clutching their pearls. We can’t say vagina or run any adverts that support vulva pleasure.”
FemTech World speaks to Raven Faber founder of EngErotics about online censorship, sex tech standards and what needs to change
The slogan for this years’ International Women’s Day was #BreaktheBias. However, it remains difficult for femtech or sex tech companies to even attempt this on the very social media platforms promoting the hashtag.
Over 40 companies have signed a petition aimed at highlighting, and ending, the discrimination faced by female-founded companies online. The companies say their posts and accounts have been blocked, shadow banned and paid advertising banned due to explicit content – including posts on endometriosis, sex tech, vagina health and other female-centric content.
Raven Faber founded EngErotics with the aim of moving into well-designed, accessible sex tech. She also began to include CBD in her business through different self-care products that enhance the experience for users. However, with the increase in online censorship, we ask if being in the cannabis industry and the sex tech industry has been difficult.
She said: “When I started EngErotics, I didn’t realise we were going to enter into cannabis as it was strictly sex tech because that’s what I knew. I didn’t know anything about CBD because I had been working in the corporate world where there were zero-tolerance policies.”
When a client reached out to Raven, she began researching what CBD was and also how it could be combined with sex tech to improve a user’s experience. Through research, she noticed that there was a huge issue with consistent quality and standards in the cannabis industry which was similar to the sex device market.
Raven said: “I discovered, similar to what we see in the intimate device work of sex toys that there were no design standards. There were no formulation standards as it was very much the wild west with no checks or accountability for quality, safety or efficacy. This was another place for engineering and tech to shine to help bring good practise and accountability into the industry.”
Online censorship
In the past few months, campaigns have been launched around the censorship experienced by sex tech or femtech companies online. This includes adverts being removed, social media posts taken down, accounts blocked and banned. Femtech companies are arguing that this has a huge effect on the industry – especially for women- as bans have included products specially designed for women. However, adverts for male products do not struggle with the same level of bans.
In a survey, the Centre for Intimacy Justice found that 60 per cent of femtech companies had had an advert removed by Facebook/Meta. Half of the companies who participated had had their accounts removed by Facebook while 100 per cent had had an advert rejected by Instagram.
Raven remembers how difficult advertising was when she started. After hearing reports of how difficult it was to advertise, she decided to use a grassroots approach with Facebook in comparison to a multi-platform advertising strategy or paid advertising.
She said: “I didn’t really bother with paid advertising as I was hearing from other people that they were having a rough time with it. People were having their social accounts shut down so I did the best that I could. We didn’t have an Instagram or Twitter for a long time but we had a Facebook page where people could find us.”
While Meta platforms cannot stop every account that features sex or fem tech, bots look for certain words to flag from obvious choices such as cannabis or sex to the more unusual word, men. It has led to influencers changing the way they spell certain words to avoid triggering a bot response. This is why accounts use words such as s3x, oud or m3n instead of the actual spelling.
Raven said: “In the beginning, it was just me making things up and hoping it would work. I didn’t censor myself so I would spell sex correctly or not abbreviate the word orgasm. We had to be very careful not to post anything explicit or show pictures of the toys or nudity. Maybe it would be a pretty picture of a black woman with a suggestive copy.”
She added: “How could we put this out there in a way that is going to look benign enough where we do not get shut down because so far our account hasn’t been closed. A lot of our growth has been organic, I never bothered with throwing money into paid advertising because a lot of people were getting shut down anyway.”
Social media censorship
Often with smaller, independent or start-up companies, social media can provide a valuable link between customers and businesses. It’s essential in a world where PR campaigns can be too costly for emerging entrepreneurs or start-ups.
Raven explained: “Social media platforms are necessary evils. It’s where people go looking for you now. I’m not against social media but I hate being told what I can and can’t say when it comes to sexual education because it’s important. However, when you deal with industries that are considered to be vice then this is what you run into.”
Vice industries is the term increasingly used to describe the sex toy, adult pleasure, sex tech and cannabis worlds. In many ways, it can feel like a community where the two have almost identical problems such as bans and banking. They can overlap in many ways when it comes to censorship.
Raven said: “It took us over a year to find a merchant processor. There are a lot of people who struggle to find banking in the intimacy device and cannabis industries. I lucked out because when I opened my business, I named it, registered it and got my tax ID before I started making a product. No one told me to do that but it made sense to do it that way. I saved myself a lot of pain by getting in good with a bank first.”
She added: “If you are looking to hire contractors then there may be certain ones that won’t work with you because of the industry you are in. If it’s not the sex tech then it’s the CBD. There have been a handful of people who don’t feel comfortable providing the service because you sell vibrators because of the stigma. It’s all about the perception of what is seen to be shameful or vice. They worry that it will rub off on them and tarnish their reputation.”
The perception of the vice industry and the stigma has also had a huge effect on brands during the pandemic. Vice brands in the cannabis and fem/sex tech worlds were denied a loan during Covid to help with staffing costs or keep businesses alive.
“In 2020, the government gave out loans to businesses that qualified during Covid but businesses they defined as lewd didn’t qualify for assistance. This could include owners of strip clubs trying to pay their bartenders or adult pleasure stores that couldn’t get help. Getting a loan can be really difficult,” Raven said.
“The activity I saw on social media during this time from business owners was that those offering intimacy devices were running into brick walls because the definition of what was defined as a ‘lewd’ business was too broad and subjective. It affected everyone from those who had brick and mortar stores to e-commerce or potentially even sex therapists too. A lot of people didn’t qualify and they were hurting.”
“The funny this was, that a lot of politicians or government workers were enjoying the products they were stigmatising. A lot of my peers in this industry had people on a payroll that they couldn’t afford to pay because they didn’t qualify for this loan.”
The sex tech industry has taken massive steps into the wellness industry in recent years. The backstreet stores and dodgy websites have been replaced by glossy marketing campaigns, well-packaged items with self-care instructions or free chocolates. The vibe in modern times seems to be more focused on masturbation as a part of your wellness and self-care routine making sex tech less scary or inaccessible to all.
Industry progression
But while the industry goes forward, the advertising channels and options seem to be going backwards.
Raven said: “It’s really backwards in that you can’t advertise now. There are some companies that get away with it but a lot of the smaller ones cannot. It’s really unhelpful because you know exactly what a good campaign can do. You pump money into your ad spend with a campaign to increase your reach substantially but it’s hard. It’s difficult to get organic growth and traction.”
She added: “It’s sex educators too who are having their accounts closed down. It’s good educational stuff to do with sex which is so badly needed. It’s heavily biased in that if we are talking about men then you can run ads for erectile dysfunction medication or erectile devices. But if you start talking about female pleasure then everyone starts clutching their pearls. We can’t say vagina or run any adverts that support vulva pleasure.”
When it comes to moving forward, Raven is focusing on the journey rather than the number of followers. She believes the smaller numbers of genuine fans or customers are better than the larger audience.
Raven said: “It takes a lot of tenancy to go after that organic growth. Do we have 40,000 followers on our Instagram? No, but we will get there after a while. What I have noticed with those who follow us is that they are really into what we do. If we have 1000 followers then 60 per cent of those are actual customers in comparison to those accounts with thousands of followers where no one buys a thing.
Make no mistake, social is important. Due to the obstacles and the red tape, I’ve been focusing more on the journey, and the quality rather than the quantity.”
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Our sister publication Health Tech World brings its first live event to London this summer, gathering the people building, buying and regulating healthcare AI for a single afternoon. With a full line-up confirmed and two months to go, tickets are open now, and this first edition is one to book early.
Health Tech World Live, the debut live event from FemTech World’s sister title Health Tech World, makes its first appearance on Friday 21 August, bringing clinicians, founders, developers, NHS commissioners and investors together at Teesside University London in Stratford for an afternoon on where healthcare AI goes next. The programme is confirmed, and with two months to go, it is worth booking your place while the diary is still clear.
The line-up for this first edition reads like a who’s-who of UK health AI. Speakers include Dr James Harmsworth King, Chief Medical Strategy Officer at Numan, fresh from the MHRA’s AI Airlock; Dr Sonia Szamocki, founder and CEO of 01Health; Hugo Dragonetti of NHS London Procurement Partnership; Mikael Kågebäck, CTO at Sleep Cycle; Max Gattlin, Commercial Director at X-on Health; and Marcus Vass, Head of Digital Health at Osborne Clarke, with proceedings chaired by Alastair MacColl.
Across six sessions, the afternoon moves from scaling specialist care and smarter NHS procurement, through responsible delivery and consumer AI, to fair access to GP care and the regulation underpinning all of it. Between the talks, delegates get time with the speakers and the Health Tech World editorial team, the kind of access that is hard to come by anywhere else.
It is shaping up to be one of the summer’s standout dates in health tech, and a launch worth being part of from the start. If you are planning to be there, now is the time to get it booked.
The future of healthcare AI: strategies, opportunities and vital insights
When: Friday 21 August 2026, 12 noon to 4pm
Where: Teesside University London Campus, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, 14 East Bay Lane, London, E15 2GW
Tickets: £99
Immunotherapy may temporarily restore fertility in women with autoimmune premature ovarian insufficiency, a pilot study suggests.
Three of the 10 women who received treatment later gave birth to healthy babies.
Premature ovarian insufficiency, or POI, affects just over three per cent of women worldwide and occurs when the ovaries stop functioning before the age of 40.
The condition significantly reduces fertility and can have several causes, including autoimmune processes and genetics.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet examined whether immunotherapy could make the ovaries temporarily responsive to hormonal stimulation in women with POI caused by autoimmunity.
The study included 12 women aged between 18 and 35 with autoimmune POI.
Two withdrew before treatment began. The remaining 10 underwent ovarian hormone stimulation before receiving rituximab and again four to six months after treatment.
Rituximab is an approved and well-established medicine used to treat several autoimmune conditions and cancers.
None of the women responded to ovarian stimulation before receiving the drug.
After treatment, six developed follicles that made it possible to retrieve eggs in response to ovarian stimulation.
Follicles are small sacs within the ovaries where eggs develop.
Professor Angelica Lindén Hirschberg, the study’s first author and a professor at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, said: “The results show that in some women there remains an egg reserve that can be activated when the autoimmune process is suppressed.”
In five women, mature eggs could be frozen or fertilised.
Three later had embryos transferred and all three gave birth to healthy babies.
For safety reasons, the embryo transfers took place no earlier than one year after treatment.
One serious side effect was reported and was linked to the hormone stimulation rather than the immunotherapy.
Women with autoimmune POI commonly have other autoimmune diseases.
All six women who responded to the treatment also had autoimmune Addison’s disease, a condition in which the immune system destroys the adrenal glands.
The study was a proof-of-concept investigation without a control group and involved a small number of participants, meaning the findings must be interpreted cautiously.
A proof-of-concept study is an early investigation designed to assess whether an approach could work before it is tested more widely.
Professor Lindén Hirschberg said: “This is a first step. To determine whether the method is effective and safe, larger, randomised studies are required.”
The research team has launched a larger randomised study.
The work was carried out by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital and the University of Bergen.
It was funded by organisations including the Swedish Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation and Region Stockholm.
The researchers reported no conflicts of interest.
POI is also linked to long-term health risks caused by oestrogen deficiency, including osteoporosis, an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline and poorer mental and sexual wellbeing.
Hormone replacement therapy can relieve menopausal symptoms and reduce many of these risks, but no treatment has been reliably shown to restore fertility in women with POI.
Egg donation was previously the only option for women with the condition who wanted to become pregnant.
Xella Health has launched what it calls the first AI precision health platform built for the XX chromosome.
The company says it aims to address a lack of diagnostic precision and clinical research focused on female biology.
Women make up half of the population and account for 80 per cent of consumer healthcare decisions, but research into women’s health has historically received less funding than male-focused studies.
Kelly Lacob, Xella Health co-founder and chief executive, said: “Women have been trapped in a diagnostic dark age experiencing debilitating symptoms like severe period pain, bloating and GI issues, exhaustion, and brain fog, routinely dismissed by the healthcare system.
“This dismissal results in women being diagnosed four years later than men, on average, for the same conditions, and a seven-to-10-year delay for women to receive an accurate diagnosis for conditions like endometriosis.
Stalling necessary care and treatment results in prolonged suffering with chronic pain, heightened infertility risks, and declining mental health.
Xella is here to replace the systemic medical gaslighting women have endured for generations.
We are handing women the evidence and information they need to advocate for themselves and secure faster, accurate diagnoses before early-stage conditions spiral.”
Xella says its AI examines billions of data points from clinical information and multi-omic biomarkers to assess the probability of more than 130 conditions specific to female biology.
Multi-omic data combines information from several biological areas, including genes, proteins and hormones.
The conditions assessed include polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS, formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome, as well as perimenopause and endometriosis.
Xella was founded by Lacob, Adriana Dantas and Dr Jesus Ching, who developed the concept while working together on molecular diagnostics at Mammoth Biosciences.
The founders say the platform is designed to provide information about possible underlying causes through advanced testing and long-term care of a kind often available only through expensive concierge services.
They drew on personal experiences to build a service intended to identify small changes in a woman’s biological baseline.
Members complete an initial health questionnaire before having blood taken at a local partner laboratory such as Quest or Labcorp.
A phlebotomist can also visit a member’s home for an additional charge.
The company’s AI analyses biomarker data from genomics, proteins and hormones alongside symptoms, lifestyle risks and medical history.
Xella says this information is used to screen for more than 130 female-specific conditions, including PMOS, Hashimoto’s disease, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, endometriosis and perimenopause timelines.
Hashimoto’s disease is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system attacks the thyroid gland.
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome that can cause significant emotional and physical symptoms.
The results are processed through Xella’s own dry laboratory, which the company says is certified under the US Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments and accredited by the College of American Pathologists.
A dry laboratory analyses data using computing and other non-experimental methods rather than carrying out traditional laboratory procedures.
The findings are turned into a personalised healthcare plan and reviewed with a certified telehealth doctor.
The doctor may recommend immediate clinical action, including personalised hormone therapy or referrals to genetic counsellors, pelvic floor physiotherapists and reproductive endocrinologists.
Reproductive endocrinologists are doctors who specialise in hormones, fertility and reproductive health conditions.
Dantas, co-founder and chief operating officer, said: “Women’s health data has historically been treated in isolated silos – a hormone test here, an ultrasound there – but no one was connecting the dots across the entire biology.
“By tracking unique biological patterns longitudinally across cycles and life stages, we aren’t just providing data, but a clear path forward.”
Xella’s clinical advisers include Dr Allison Kurian, director of Stanford Women’s Clinical Cancer Genetics Program and professor of medicine, epidemiology and population health at Stanford.
They also include Dr Lynn Westphal, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist and chief medical officer of Kindbody.
Xella has received US$4.7m in angel and pre-seed funding from Precursor Ventures, Capital F, Ulu Ventures and Swizzle Ventures.
Other funds and angel investors from healthcare, diagnostics and consumer technology also participated.
Margaret Coblentz, co-founder and general partner of Capital F, said: “Women’s health is one of the highest-momentum categories in the market today, driven by a US$15tn female economy.
“Xella represents exactly how Capital F sees women’s health evolving: deep clinical expertise paired with a consumer-first mindset, and a genuine opportunity to unlock the next generation of healthcare.”
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